Chapter 62
CHAPTER 62
BETH
M artin hasn’t been answering my texts. He was until last night, but now…it’s only silence that greets me. It affects me more than I wanted it to. I wish I was stronger and could stand on my own, but I can’t. I went so long without seeing him every single day after we had that wonderful week together when I fell for him. Now that I’ve seen him and been close to him again, I can’t stand that when I reach out, he isn’t reaching back to me.
I know he’s probably dealing with a lot right now, especially with my impending marriage to his brother, but I need him. I need his understanding and the way he can find things to smile about even when the world is crumbling around him.
Warren gives me a ride to the La Quinta hotel nearby. He has a lot of questions concerning why I need a hotel room when my mom has a house, but I’m not in the mood to explain. My first instinct was to go back to the house in Hempstead, but considering that I still have school to attend in town and I bet it would make Nolan furious if I wasn’t in town, I opt for the hotel.
I have a lot of anger toward my mother. She was the one who put Nolan’s sights on me in the first place. He wouldn’t have looked at me twice the day I first stepped into that house if it wasn’t for the deal she was brokering with him. I can’t stay with her and a part of me is mindful that none of my boys would want me there, either.
I don’t want to be in a house with Aimee anyway.
“I just need to register for a room. I still have school, and I need to pick up my things from Nigel’s house before I head to school,” I explain my plan as I nervously tug on the sleeves of my sweater.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take you to his house and to school if you need me to. I just want to make sure you’re okay. Your dad was one of my best friends, and you’re in a crappy situation, Bethany.”
A crappy situation indeed.
I nod with a grateful smile across my face. “Thanks.”
* * *
I register for a room, and Warren drives me to the house on Mason Road, but from the look on his face, he’s not comfortable leaving me here. “Thanks for everything, Warren. I’ll be fine. Mom’s house is around the corner, and I can grab her car before heading to school.” I won’t, but the last thing I want is for him to continue worrying about me. The only things he knows have to do with the contract, nothing else. He doesn’t know about my pregnancy, why Nigel was arrested, or about my accident.
“You have my number if you need me, kiddo.”
I nod before opening the door, stepping out of the car, and closing it behind me. Turning toward the house, I walk across the lawn, onto the porch, and through the front door. What I don’t expect is for the guys, with the exception of Ollie, and the girls to be standing around the living room, talking animatedly.
“Everything okay?” I ask, a little confused by them holding court like a bunch of gossiping biddies. Everyone snaps around at my arrival, and Aimee glares at me.
“You fucking bitch!” Aimee charges at me and slaps me so hard across the face that I lose my balance and fall to the floor. The flesh on my cheek burns, and my knees ache from the impact. My body has barely recovered from the accident, so it feels like another wreck is happening, and I don’t know how to stop it. Tears assault my eyes.
“What the fuck, Aimee?” Judy yells.
“Your friend is a good-for-nothing slut, alright? She has a lot of nerve coming here after what she did to my brother.”
“Like you have any room to talk! Aren’t you tired of waiting around for her sloppy seconds, or is that where all your bitchiness is coming from? Is that it? Are you pissed at her over your brother, or is it the Oliver thing you’re mad about?” Judy pops back like a true friend, and if my face didn’t hurt like hell, I might cheer her on.
“You bitch! That has nothing to do with this. She broke my brother’s heart.”
“And your brother hasn’t broken a hundred hearts before, right? He deserves it after everything he has put her through. I won’t tarnish the perfect image you have of him, but he has been the worst boyfriend to her from day one. He can fight his own battles. He doesn’t need you attacking a pregnant woman in his honor.”
The entire room falls silent as I sit back on my rump and lean against the door, pushing my hair out of my face.
“She-she’s pregnant?” Aimee blanches, the color draining from her face.
“Geez. I don’t know. Any other women you’ve hit to defend your piece of shit brother?” Judy sasses as everyone stares at me.
Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. No sense lying about it. I’ve dropped hints the past few days, but not even Ronan caught onto it.
“What the fuck happened?” Oliver’s voice booms as he walks out of the hall, rushing straight for me.
“She deserved it, Ollie–knocked up or not.” Aimee stands her ground, her head held high, and crosses her arms over her chest. Well, she’s a stubborn goat. That’s for sure.
Before he can reach me, he turns to her, and the inferno created by his rage is so sweltering that it singes my skin. “I’ll say this once. Touch her again, and I will fucking end you. I don’t give a shit about who your brother is or where you came from. It changes nothing about how I will beat your ass into the ground if you touch her, say anything disrespectful to her or about her ever again. You hear me?”
She opens her mouth to argue, but with one nasty look from him, she scowls at him.
“Get her out of my sight and stop jumping to her defense. You’re not her lapdog,” Aimee mutters angrily.
“How about you just leave?” he growls in her face. “Know. Your. Place.”
A part of me feels bad for Aimee. I’ve been jealous before, and it sucks. She hates that I have a place with Oliver, and she isn’t his first choice. He made it clear that I am. If it wasn’t for Nigel’s behavior and this deal, I would be his only choice, and she knows it. I’m not just a threat to her. I hold the majority of Oliver Doyle’s attention. To her, he’s her only choice. To him, she’s just a memory. Most of the time, Aimee annoys the piss out of him, but the rest of the time, I see that there could be something there if she didn’t make a habit of getting on his nerves.
Her expression falls, but she tries to cover it up with rage. “Fuck you.” Then, instead of waiting for me to get up so she can go out the front door, she charges through the kitchen and out the door there, slamming it as she goes.
“Come on,” Ollie mutters as he turns to me and helps me off the floor with his arms around me.
“I’m fine. My cheek just stings.”
“Why didn’t you call me when the meeting ended? I would’ve picked you up.” Ollie removes the single piece of hair attached to my lip and sweeps it behind my ear.
“I didn’t want to bother you if you were busy,” I justify before looking at everyone else. I reiterate my question from when I arrived as Oliver stands by me, his arm draped around my waist like it’s second nature to him.
“Someone tipped Nigel off about the deal,” he explains, and my eyes widen.
“What? No! I just signed the contract. How could he already know?” I panic and cling to Ollie as he holds me.
“He received a visit before dawn from Martin at the behest of Nolan Gray, inviting him to your wedding,” Ronan utters with disgust across his face.
It’s not Martin’s fault. I know the kind of control his father has over him. If Martin did what they say he did, Nolan held something over his head and made him do it.
“Oh my god. No, no, no! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“Calm down, crazy girl,” Oliver whispers as he cradles my face in his hands, angling my head so I’m gazing up into his gorgeous eyes. They can be so alluring and distracting sometimes, but not right now. “He should be getting out soon. You can explain everything then.”
“How about you explain it to us? Why are we out of the loop on whatever is happening, but Doyle knows about it?” Oisin pipes in, looking more irritated than I’ve ever seen him, and that’s saying a lot.
My head swivels, so I’m looking at everyone, but before I can say anything, Ollie does.
“Beth has been brokering a deal with the Grays to release Nigel. A big part of that deal is that she has to marry Michael.”
I thought my problems before all of this were bad. I wish I could go back to my biggest problem being my mother getting sober and getting out of this situation with Nigel. Now, things just seem to be piling onto my plate, one after another.
“How does that work with you being pregnant?” Ronan presses, and Judy joins the conversation.
“We’ve already worked that out. Her part of the deal doesn’t take place until she marries Michael, so they’re going to push back the wedding until after she gives birth and she’s going to leave town to have the baby, right, Beth?”
“I don’t think that idea will go over too well with Nigel. Shouldn’t he be there when she has the baby?”
The tension in the room is so thick from Charlie’s words that it couldn’t even be cut with the sharpest blade in the world. Judy sends a supportive look.
“Do you want to tell them, Bee?”
I sigh with exhaustion. “I don’t know if the baby is Nigel’s, and I won’t until I get to the doctor. It might be Ollie’s and…it could also be Martin’s.”
There’s a few minutes of silence where everyone just absorbs everything, but they aren’t the ones who bring an end to the silence.
“I’ll give you a ride,” Ollie offers, which is really sweet of him, but I don’t want to impose. I don’t want him to feel like he has to do everything for me.
“I’ve got that covered,” Judy says before gently squeezing my arm in support.
“Beth?” Ronan speaks up as he walks over to us. “I don’t want to act like a dick, but Nigel wants me to pick him up from the jail and take him to school from there. He said that he doesn’t want you or your things here when he gets home. Sorry.”
I expected as much. I guess all I really needed to do to lose Nigel’s attention was get engaged to someone who wasn’t him. Maybe if Ollie or Martin had put a ring on my finger we could’ve avoided this whole mess.
I frown. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. I knew this would happen when I made the deal. I just thought I could tell him everything myself. I’ll talk to him at school, not that I think that will make much of a difference. You know him, Ro. He doesn’t like listening to reason or logic, especially when he’s pissed off.”
I don’t like the idea of Nigel O’Reilly hating me. I still love him and don’t want there to be any bad blood. I know that’s just wishful thinking though.
He shrugs. “Give it time. He’ll come around once he calms down.”
Oliver has been saying the same thing, but it’s hard to truly believe that. I never thought there would be a time when Nigel wouldn’t want me around, but that time has come, and my heart has never hurt so much.
* * *
Judy took me to drop off my bags at the hotel before she drove us to school. As we arrive, she squeezes my arm, reassuring me that everything will be fine. I have no clue when Nigel will get here, but I want to make sure I get to talk to him as soon as possible. I know he’s mad, but I need to state my case, or I will go insane.
“It’s going to be fine,” she offers as we walk inside, and I head straight to Nigel’s locker, knowing the bell just rang to let people out for their classes and the halls will be filling up quickly.
“I have this overwhelming feeling of dread,” I admit as I lean against the locker beside Nigel’s, and she offers me a kind smile.
“That’s your anxiety. He might be mad and won’t want to listen, but you’ll survive. That’s the most important thing. You’re strong, Bethany Mercer, and so is your little bean.”
I groan with frustration. “Can everyone please stop talking about it as if it’s not a part of my body?” I explode but instantly regret it from the look of sadness on Judy’s face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re right. I’m stressed and shouldn’t take it out on you.” I offer her a hug, but I know she’s worried about my mental health. “I’m not used to dealing with so much stress, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m not ready to face my pregnancy yet, okay? Can we not talk about it at all?”
“We can do that, Bee. This is your experience. If you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t. Plain and simple. I’ve got your back, okay?”
I know I can always count on Judy to be understanding and to always be there for me. She’s the one person I know I can turn to for guidance.Well, the only one that is answering my pleas for help.
Her eyes widen as they dart over my shoulder.
“What?” I ask, panicked.
“Nigel…and he looks ready for a fight. Do you need me to stay?” Her eyes narrow, protective as ever.
I can imagine how scary a sight like that could be, especially to someone like Judy. “I can do it on my own. Go to class.”
Turning on her heels, Judy heads to class, and I spin around. My gaze instantly gravitates to him like a moth to a flame, and my heart sputters at seeing him walking around, not in the orange jumpsuit, not handcuffed to a fucking chair.
Just seeing him walking around a free man makes it all worth it.
I stand in front of his locker as he approaches, his backpack over his shoulder. The clothes he wears are clean, and he’s freshly showered. It’s not surprising for Nigel, but it is surprising for him to come from jail straight to school.
“Get out of my way,” he warns, venom sliding off his tongue, and his hard eyes are directed at me.
“We need to talk,” I state, but the fury in his eyes intensifies as he pushes me away from his locker. It’s not hard. He could’ve used a lot more strength than he did, and it would’ve caused damage to me, but he held back.
He has no intention of hurting me.
“Not interested. How about you go fuck yourself and hang all over your fiancé ?” Nigel snaps as he turns the knob on his locker, trying to ignore me. He’s angry, and I would be angry, too.I’d actually do worse than he is if the situation was reversed, but he doesn’t have the whole story.
“I just wanted you to understand?—”
“Oh, I fucking understand everything perfectly. I got arrested, and you decided to move on with one of my closest friends.”
“What?” I gape at the insinuation. “That is not at all?—”
“Honestly, I thought if you were going to stab me in the back while I was in jail, it would’ve been Ollie that was screwing you. Touché .” He slams his locker, and I charge after him, frustrated with how he absolutely refuses to let me say anything.
What more could I expect from him though?
“I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t have a fucking choice!” I grab his arm, and he snaps around, the fury in his eyes directed at me.
“You could’ve trusted me, you conniving cunt!”
I jump back from what he called me, and tears assault my eyes.
“Did you forget that I saw your bruises? I didn’t do this for myself, you asshole. I did this for you .”
He rolls his eyes and scoffs. “Yeah, and I’m the President of the United States. How exactly would marrying one of my friends help me ? Wait, you know what? I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to see you, talk to you. I don’t even want to smell your fucking perfume. I don’t give a damn what you do. You could go back to that bridge and jump off it for all I care.”
At that moment, he rips my heart out of my chest before shoving it back through the gaping hole. It aches worse than ever before, but I know the muscle is still there because of how bad it hurts.
He pivots on his heels and charges off as tears fall down my face. “I didn’t have a choice!”
Instead of saying anything in return, he thrusts his hand in the air, holding up his middle finger as he turns down a corridor.
I can hardly breathe as he goes, knowing this is just the beginning of my torment. I have at least thirteen years of it to go.